Installing RH8.0 on a Compaq ML350 (LILO problem)

With the antiquated version of LILO that RH distributes ( date), you have to manually specify the BIOS device codes of each disk, if you
have other that hda & hdb.

Either specify the CORRECT bios device codes for your disks, or get version
22.5++ of LILO.

disk=/dev/cciss/c0d0 bios=0x8? # fill in ?
# etc.

Booting from known device 0x00.

Dennis Peere schreef:

A known sympton. Your LILO is indeed damaged. Do you have any other way
to get in to your system (bootdisk, ..)? Most times this can be simply
solved by rerunning lilo. (just type lilo as root on the command and reboot)

You should also check that lilo is configured to be installed on the MBR
(eg /dev/hda) and not in the beginning of a partition (eg /dev/hda1):
the device should not end with a number. If you can, include your lilo
configuration file in your next post, I believe it should be:
/etc/lilo.conf or /boot/lilo.conf

An other option off course, provided that you are able to get in your
system, is changing the bootmanager to GRUB. I work now with GRUB for
some time now and I must say it's a lot handier than LILO.

hope this helps,

Dries.

P.S. Do you speak Dutch?

Dear David,

I did perform /sbin/lilo afterwards :-)
I'm using LILO because I've never worked with GRUB before.
Is there anything else I can check ? Is there a way to install GRUB on this
system when booting from floppy ?
After "googling" for several hours I found alot of information of problems
with LILO and RAID systems
I do have a manually installed system with the same configuration that works
fine so I can compare files.
I must be missing something when performing the kickstart installation :-(

Regards,

Dennis

...

Hello Dennis,

Getting the first 'L' means that:
"The first stage boot loader has been loaded and started, but it can't load the
second stage boot loader. The two-digit error codes indicate the type of
problem. (See also section ``Disk error codes''.) This condition usually
indicates a media failure or a geometry mismatch (e.g. bad disk parameters)."

This is from '#, which
explains the error messages thrown by LILO.

My guess is that LILO can't find '/boot', which means, assuming your setup
below is kosher, that you have a config problem. (And you did rerun
'/sbin/lilo' after making your changes, right?)

One question, 'though, is there a reason for using LILO when RH's default boot
loader is GRUB? I'm only asking because I use both, and find GRUB better
documented and easier to use. If you find LILO too much of a pain to
configure

Best regards,
David

--
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live."
- Mark Twain